The Prince’s Captive Wife

As far as Andreas was concerned she still wanted to go home.

Of course she did, she reminded herself sharply. Of course she did.

She left him showering. Sophia was waiting outside, looking anxious. ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

‘What comes next,’ Holly whispered. ‘In truth, Sophia, I don’t know. But for now…I have so few clothes and I’m about to return to Aristo as a royal wife. Let’s you and I do a fast sort through this appalling wardrobe and see if we can find something that makes me look vaguely respectable.’

‘More than respectable,’ Sophia said and hugged her. ‘You want a wardrobe that makes you look royal. You want a wardrobe that makes Andreas wish to keep you.’

‘Yeah, well that’d be a magic wardrobe,’ Holly said stiffly. ‘Let’s not count on miracles here.’

Andreas stood under the streaming water and felt ill. He’d almost forgotten. The last three days had been a magic time out, but Sebastian’s phone call had been curt to the point of being brutal. A reality check in the worst possible way.

‘You have to get back here. I can’t trust many people with the knowledge of the missing diamond. You have to go to Greece and search.’

‘I can’t leave Holly.’

‘You’ve done what you had to do with Holly. That problem’s over. Forget her. We have bigger problems now.’

‘She’s my wife…’

‘Because she had to be your wife,’ Sebastian snapped. ‘You hardly want to keep her.’ Then, as Sebastian heard nothing in response-heard the nuances behind Andreas’s silence-he sighed. ‘All right. She’s beautiful, I grant you. But if you want her long term then she has to play by the rules. This situation is too complicated as it is, and if she makes it more so…Leave her on the island. Or send her back to Australia.’ He hesitated. ‘No. It’s perhaps too soon for that. But if she sticks around, you need to make sure she stays firmly in the background.’

‘She’s hardly going to bring us down, Sebastian,’ Andreas said.

‘Anything can bring us down right now,’ Sebastian answered grimly. ‘We’re on a knife edge. We have to find that diamond. So I want you here now.’

The phone went dead. Andreas was left staring into space. Hating it.

The royal goldfish bowl…He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t hated it.

A memory popped up, uninvited and maybe untimely.

When he was six years old he’d been ill. Seriously ill, with rheumatic fever. He had glimmers of memory through a haze of fever. His huge bed with its starched white sheets, in the over-ornate hall that served as the royal nursery. Doctors surrounding him, looking grave. His mother coming into the room, sitting on his bed-an almost unheard of thing for the queen to do. His father restricted his contact with his parents to a ten-minute recital of his achievements for the day, formally performed before high tea. But this day she had stayed, and looked worried. And then he remembered the magic words-said to his nanny, Sophia.

‘Very well, if that’s what the doctors are ordering, you can take him home. I’ll defy his father, on this. But you’re not to let him forget what’s due to him.’

What followed was three months in Sophia’s home town, in Sophia’s own home. Sophia’s mountain village was known for its medicinal qualities-it was supposed to be a place where damaged lungs and hearts could find a place to heal.

Sophia had promised his father that he’d be treated as a prince, gravely and sincerely. They’d been driven to the village in one of the palace’s vast limousines. Sophia had been strictly formal all the way home, but as they stood in the doorway of her home and watched the limousine disappear into the distance she’d suddenly bent and hugged him.

‘I have you here, my little cabbage, and I’ll make you well,’ she’d said joyously. ‘This is our secret but for these three months I want you to be a child. I want you to be free.’

And he had been. As his health had improved he’d swooped around the village as part of the tribe of local kids, running, playing, going to the local school, getting into mischief, falling for the misbegotten mutts that were the family pets. He’d eaten at Sophia’s kitchen table with Sophia and Nikos-they’d both been granted leave of absence from the palace staff to take care of this sickly princeling.

They were sharing the rambling old house with Sophia’s two grown sons and their wives, and a tribe of grandchildren. Sophia had tucked him into bed each night-a bedroom he shared with Sophia’s oldest grandson. She’d hugged him and kissed him and he’d slept as he’d never slept before or since.

His mother’s words had stayed with him as he returned to the palace. You can take him home. That was what it had felt like. He’d wanted so much to go back. His time in Australia had been a desperate attempt to relive that experience-being normal-being a kid again.

And in a way it had worked. He’d fallen in love with Holly in the same way a six- year-old had fallen in love with Sophia. Or actually in a very different way, he thought ruefully. But there were similarities. He’d escaped into…love.

But both times had ended. Both times he’d been called back to the palace, to the place where shows of emotion were regarded as weakness. Where noise and mess, pets and mischief were not tolerated. Where the word home had no place. But he had no choice. It was his duty. It was his birthright.

He was needed now. He had to go back.

With Holly. It had to be with Holly.

She’d hate it, he thought. He had no right to ask this of her, even for a short while. But it was too soon to send her back to Australia.

Hell, he didn’t want her back at the palace, confined to royal protocol. His fantasy with Holly had never included royal trimmings.

He looked through the open bathroom door to the bedroom beyond. Deefer was watching him from the doorway. The pup’s intelligent little face was cocked to the side as if he knew his master was troubled.

‘Can you be a royal dog?’ he asked.

Deefer stared back at him, appearing to ponder the question. Then, bored, he gazed around him.

The bed had a massive brocade cover, tumbled now and lying half over the end of the bed. It had magnificent gold tassles on the side.

Deefer barked at the closest tassle. Then he crouched low, pounced, grabbed the tassle and headed for the main door. Dragging the priceless brocade with him.

Maybe not, Andreas thought ruefully. Maybe Deefer wasn’t a royal dog as Holly wasn’t a royal princess.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and flicked off the taps. He reached for his towel and padded through to find his clothes. A suit. Clothes to make him a prince again.

With wife? With dog?

Only if they both learned to toe the royal line.

They were on opposite sides of the helicopter again. This machine wasn’t meant for lovers. Nor was it meant for man and wife.

She didn’t feel like a wife right now. She was on her way to being a royal princess. She felt small and insignificant and scared.

Andreas was staring out the window to the land below. Aristo.

A reception committee was waiting. From the helicopter she could see a cluster of waiting suits, of media jostling for position.

‘The press?’ she asked in a small voice and Andreas sighed.

‘It’s only to be expected. Our marriage has caused enormous interest. However hopefully they’ll back off now I’ve done the right thing.’

‘Now I’ve done the right thing…’